Replacement Anova shows up today, they let me switch to red (what I originally ordered but switched to black). Now that I have red, I kind of like the black better. The white has a white top/clamp which is a bit odd.

Regardless it will work the same! Now for a 24 chuck roast.

Edit: And here it is mounted on my full size camwear 8" deep, with seal cover lid (customized).

Thanks for this; I'm copying this setup almost exactly. I also ordered one of the 1/2 size camwear 8" buckets based on your comments. I am hoping this will end up being everything I need to have some awesome steaks and pork loins. Hopefully the anova shows up expediently.

Looking to cook some squid in the waterbath, no baggy. The Anova manual says to not use any non-water based liquids. Will it be an issue for the circulator if I cook something that leaves organic residues in the water?

Looking to cook some squid in the waterbath, no baggy. The Anova manual says to not use any non-water based liquids. Will it be an issue for the circulator if I cook something that leaves organic residues in the water?

Looking to cook some squid in the waterbath, no baggy. The Anova manual says to not use any non-water based liquids. Will it be an issue for the circulator if I cook something that leaves organic residues in the water?

Hahaha. In my mind, I read this post as a sexual innuendo and it made me laugh. "No baggie", "non water-based liquids", and "organic residue". Those are too good to be true.

I made the mistake of not using hot water when filling up the freaking massive pot, not realizing how long it would take to heat up the whole thing from 80 Farenheit. Holy poo poo. It took forever. It creeps up at about 1 degree per minute on average, occasionally going up in spurts of .3-.5 over 5-6 seconds, and then stalling out, even decreasing by .1 or .2, then recovering and going again. Granted, in my case it was a massive amount of water that it was heating up by nearly 60 degrees, but I was kind of expecting a more powerful heating element. If you started with water from an insta-hot, or start with near-boiling water and then add cool water to bring it down, you might be better off. Looking for ways to speed the time up, I started scooping water out down to the "min" line with a cup, and replacing it back up to my desired level with water from the insta-hot; as one might expect, both actions (lowering the amount of water in the pot and adding hot water to it) raised the temperature fairly quickly. This cut the time down to around 25 minutes to heat it up from 80 degrees

Took me a while to get around to posting, but we ate my weird-air-in-the-bag short ribs the other day after 48 hours in the bath @ 135 degrees.

Nothing smelled rancid when I opened the bag. Something did smell a little.... weird. But I thought the same thing about a pork chop my friend ordered at a steakhouse last week and he couldn't smell it at all. I think my nose is broken. In any case, I seared the short ribs on all sides in a cast iron pan and my friends and I got down to eating them.

Verdict: One of my friends said "tasty, but just make those delicious steaks next time" - the short ribs were too mushy for him. I almost have to agree (and this was after only 48 hours, god forbid I'd done 72). But I'll just try it again for 24 or 36 hours and see if that gives us a better consistency rather than give up and stick to steaks.

The other issue we saw was the fattiness; the fat does get very soft but it doesn't render out. Do I have to take the ribs apart (off the bone) before searing and render the fat off during the sear? I do prefer the experience of eating ribs bone-in.

When I first made shortribs I got the feeling that bone-in needed to get to 140°F to reach the same doneness as boneless at 135°F. This kind of puzzled me since most sites would say that you can cook them both the same way.

Higher temp might help firm up the meat and render the fat at any rate. I kind of doubt the mushy texture was from too much collagen.

I have found that if I cool down ribs after cooking them it gives a much better texture than eating them warm, I haven't researched this effect much but I think it has to do with gelatin needing to cool a bit.

I hear you can if you put it fat-side-down, especially after it's softened up so much (hell, my pan had nearly a half-centimeter of fat in it after searing 8 ribs without even trying that). But I'd really rather not tear my ribs apart to do that.

I hear you can if you put it fat-side-down, especially after it's softened up so much (hell, my pan had nearly a half-centimeter of fat in it after searing 8 ribs without even trying that). But I'd really rather not tear my ribs apart to do that.

That works if the fat is in a convenient layer all together, which it really shouldn't be in shortribs. This works with something like e.g. a duck breast because a lot of the fat in duck (and in most poultry) is in a layer between the meat and the skin. Most beef, especially the parts you want to eat the most, isn't like this and has fat marbled throughout, unless you're cutting your own portions off a primal or something.

Sous vide salmon is the the best way to eat salmon. I won't order a salmon steak or cooked salmon fillet anywhere because it will never turn out as nicely as doing myself at home. At its best the inside of a sous vide salmon filet is soft and rare like sushi but buttery and flaky like perfectly cooked salmon. Serve with seasonal veggies or greens.

This video shows off the basics. It's harder to do it perfectly consistently in a sink, bathtub, or cooler.

But it really doesn't cover it in-depth and there are a lot of small things you can do to make it better. Brining the fish for as little as an hour makes an amazing difference in texture and only a subtle difference in taste.

Here is an amazing recipe from an amazing book that will make some of the best fish you ever ate:

quote:

To reach a core temperature of 45 °C / 113 °F, a 2.5 cm / 1 in thick piece of salmon will take about 25 minutes. A thinner piece may take as little as 12 minutes, while a thicker piece may take 30 minutes or more.
Our favorite temperature is 45 °C / 113 °F, which is rare. But you can go up as high as 52 °C / 126 °F for a firm texture.

There are a variety of spices you can use too, the spice mix on that page is too specific for me. I like rosemary and a little white pepper but dill or peppercorns are also good. I also like to finish it in a pan for 10 seconds using the oil it cooked in rather than butter.

Steve Yun, please edit this sous vide cooker into the OP:

Many Hot tubs can reach and hold high temperatures within a decent tolerance. 45 °C / 113 °F isn't too hot for some people and a ziplock bag full of salmon makes for a gross great party trick.

Heran Bago fucked around with this message at Oct 24, 2013 around 12:57

There is often a fairly thick layer of fat running through short ribs just above the bone. The front three in that photo show it off quite well.

Then trim them. You still don't want to try to sear it off. Sear a duck breast skin side down and you'll render off a lot of the fat---because most of the fat is between the skin and the meat---and you'll still get good flavour from the browning of the skin itself. Try searing a knob of fat on a piece of beef that's already done (because it's been through the puddle machine) and you're either going to not get enough browning or you'll end up overcooking the surrounding meat rendering down the knob of fat. And you're still not meaningfully rendering the fat out of the short rib, because---and that photo you linked shows this---the meat is marbled. So if you're getting texture problems from the consistency of the fat in the meat, whatever you're doing to any surface fat isn't going to change the consistency of the rest of the fat, which is most of it.

Nobody minds the marbling of the meat. It's that (occasionally very thick) layer of fat a centimeter above the bone that results in mouthfuls of fat. I can't trim it without taking the meat off the bone, which as I said I'd rather not do. Though it would save me from having to try to render it off, which would require pulling it off the bone also.

Nobody minds the marbling of the meat. It's that (occasionally very thick) layer of fat a centimeter above the bone that results in mouthfuls of fat. I can't trim it without taking the meat off the bone, which as I said I'd rather not do. Though it would save me from having to try to render it off, which would require pulling it off the bone also.

Question regarding this:

What's the appeal of bone in or boneless when using sous vide? I cooked a t bone with a lot of fat on it and trimmed what I could because there was so much fat on it. Seemed like it might have been easier to take it off the bone while I was at it.

I am a bit confused by this technique but I have a PID controller so I might try it out.
What confuses me is the temperature to keep to make it safe.
'
I have some salmon in my freezer, I'd like to cook it medium rare (say 45 celsius). Should I just cook it sous vide for 2 hours and done? What confuses me is that the pasteurization tables here say to keep the salmon at 55 celsius for hours to kill of the bacteria. What would I do with such overcooked salmon later though?

I'm trying the 72 hour short rib recipe, seared on all sides and double-bagged in the food saver. I started it last night and when I woke up, there was a distinct smell of cooking beef in the house. The bags look sealed - no ballooning visible - but it seems weird that I can smell anything at all through two Food Saver bags. Is that normal or should I be concerned? It's a pleasant smell but it doesn't seem like it should be there at all.

So, uh, completely on a whim today I took some of the brisket I was going to smoke into pastrami, put it in a ziploc bag, submerged the air out of it, set up my slow cooker with water and made a 170 degree water bath. Sometime tomorrow afternoon baring massive temp fluctuations, I will have entirely jerry rigged ghetto sous vide corned beef.

There are a variety of spices you can use too, the spice mix on that page is too specific for me. I like rosemary and a little white pepper but dill or peppercorns are also good. I also like to finish it in a pan for 10 seconds using the oil it cooked in rather than butter.

Just made this tonight, with the spice mix in the recipe. Un-loving-believable salmon.

Sides: rice, and carmelized brussel sprout thing I found when they mentioned in winter they prefer cabbage with the salmon.

I am a bit confused by this technique but I have a PID controller so I might try it out.
What confuses me is the temperature to keep to make it safe.
'
I have some salmon in my freezer, I'd like to cook it medium rare (say 45 celsius). Should I just cook it sous vide for 2 hours and done? What confuses me is that the pasteurization tables here say to keep the salmon at 55 celsius for hours to kill of the bacteria. What would I do with such overcooked salmon later though?

I'm not sure what that table is all about. Even further down on the page it says 108°F (42°C) for rare salmon, so I don't get what they mean by pasteurized.
e: From the salmon recipe:

quote:

It is safer to use previously frozen fish than fresh fish. Because fish will be inedible if cooked to pasteurization temperatures, the fish in this recipe won’t be pasteurized. Professionally freezing fish, however, kills most pathogens that are found in fish. Never serve “lightly cooked” food to immunocompromisedpeople.

Yeah so like eating sushi, be careful! These low temperatures kill most everything you'd worry about but it's still not fit for the boy in the plastic bubble. Don't use old unfrozen fish and practice your best food safety. When in doubt cook longer.

Overcooking sous vide at a low temperature might result in some way too soft meat. Maybe thaw it out in cool or room temperature water (why not the brine?) before using the hot water bath?

What you really care about is core temperature. Let it cook for as long as you want and when you think it might be done open the bag and stab the center with an instant-read electric thermometer. If you get your target temperature then finish it, otherwise try to submerge-vacuum and seal it back up.

There are special tapes or gums you can use so you that can stab a thermometer right through the bag. This could be nice if you're some kind of scientist with a probe thermometer.

My Dorkfood came in earlier this week, and I ended up attempting steak--a NY strip, at 130 degrees for a hour. It came out good, but I had trouble putting a good sear on it with only a minute on each side in my cast iron skillet. I ended up giving it a little more time to develop a crust, and that ended up bringing more gray into the steaks than I really care for. Does anyone have any tips for developing a crust, fast?

My Dorkfood came in earlier this week, and I ended up attempting steak--a NY strip, at 130 degrees for a hour. It came out good, but I had trouble putting a good sear on it with only a minute on each side in my cast iron skillet. I ended up giving it a little more time to develop a crust, and that ended up bringing more gray into the steaks than I really care for. Does anyone have any tips for developing a crust, fast?

Dry it more, make sure the pan has a thin layer of neutral oil in it and is pretty hot.